Counterfeit Christianity: The Jehovah’s Witness
John 1:1,14-17
George Gallup states, “This is the most crucial decade in History. Designer, a la carte religion flourishes as traditional Christianity is undermined by counterfeits.”
This is true when it comes to Charles Taze Russell the founder of Jehovah’s Witness cult. He was born in February 16, 1852 in Pittsburgh Pa. and died October 31, 1916.
He lived a colorful life with all kinds of legal troubles with his religious schemes.
· He was selling his so-called sermons that were supposed to have been preached on his “World Tour” in 1912 and that proved to be a lie.
· Another scheme was called the “Miracle Wheat” with claims that it would grow 5 times that of normal wheat. It sold for $1.00 a pound. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle was a N.Y. paper that had national importance and it ran from 1841 to 1955. It exposed many of Russell’s schemes through court.
P.T. Barnum said correctly, “Never underestimate the gullibility of the public…there’s a sucker born every minute.”
· In June of 1912 Reverend J.J. Ross pastor of James Street Baptist Church in Hamilton, Ontario published a pamphlet denouncing Russell as a minister and his qualifications as a scholar along with his moral depravity. Well Charles Russell sued Pastor Ross for “Defamatory Libel”.
In the pamphlet, Ross said that Russell’s system of theology was, “Anti-rational, anti-scientific, anti-biblical, anti-Christian and a deplorable perversion of the gospel of God’s dear Son.”
Under cross-examination that took 5 hours here is just one example of the Russell answered...
Q: Attorney Stanton: “Do you know the Greek Alphabet?
A: Russell: “Oh, yes.”
Q: Can you tell me the correct letters if you see them?”
A: Some of them; I might make a mistake on some of them.”
Q: Would you tell me the names of those on the top of the page?”
A: Well, I don’t know that I would be able to.”
Q: You can’t tell what those letters are? Look at them and see if you know?”
A: “My way…” (at this point Russell is interrupted).
Q: “Are you familiar with the Greek language?”
A: “No”.
The next round of questioning was about his ordination. Russell claimed that his ordination was equal if not superior to ordained and accredited ministers. Attorney Stanton asked Russell to answer “Yes” or “No” to the next questions…
Q: “Is it true you were never ordained?”
A: “It is not true”.
Q: “Now you never were ordained by a bishop, clergyman, presbytery, council, or any body of men living?”
A: “I never was.”
He lost his case, and in falling to name the Greek alphabet, he proved himself a perjurer under oath, mainly because all through his ministry he claimed to base his cult on his Greek and Hebrew scholarship!
4 areas that are always falsely taught by cults:
· The Trinity.
· Deity of Christ.
· The Person of the Holy Spirit.
· The immortality of the soul.
The Jehovah’s Witness does a good job butchering these 4 points!
1. Their Deception of John 1:1.
John 1:1 “…The word was a god.” - New World Translation
In their New World Translation of the Bible that was first published in 1950 shows deliberate misinterpretation of key phrases by their so-called scholars. I call it “scheming scholarship” – it’s a joke!
On November 24, 1954 Fredrick W. Franz, their leading representative on the NWT Bible translation committee said under oath…
Q: Can you yourself, translate that into Hebrew?
A: Which?
Q: That fourth verse of the second chapter of Genesis.
A: You mean this?
Q: Yes
A: No!
They can’t even interpret the O.T. right, how can we believe their N.T. interpretations?
Universal Greek Grammatical Rule: The subject of the sentence is “word”; the verb is “was”. There can never be a direct object “a” following “was”, since verbs cannot take on an object. It is poor grammar and poor Greek to do otherwise.
Now this is how you can get a Jehovah’s Witness – ask them why don’t your so-called scholars do the same with all the other verses in the N.T. with regards to placing a direct object after the verb? They do it here because it fits their faulty and fanciful theology!
What is this verse from the NWT saying about God and Jesus Christ?
· That God is polytheistic – not true!
Deuteronomy 5:7 “You shall have no other gods before me.”
They get around this as saying that Jehovah is higher than all other gods.
Deuteronomy 6:4 “Hear O Israel, The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” (Monotheistic)
In Exodus 3:14 Jehovah God says to Moses “I Am”
But wait - Jesus said in John 8:58, “Before Abraham was I Am.”
When Jesus said this - any reasonable person can see that Jesus was actually saying, “I Am Jehovah” in the flesh!
By the way, how do we know this for sure? Because in the next verse the Jews tried to stone Him for blasphemy - Jesus was identifying Himself not as a god but Jehovah God!
Now watch this – Isaiah 43:10 “…Before Me there was no God formed, nor shall there be after Me.”
Then in Isaiah 43:11 “…And besides Me there is no Savior.”
· That Jesus is not equal with God – not true!
To the Jehovah’s Witness, Jesus is Michael the archangel. Remember, Mormons teach that Lucifer is Jesus spirit brother!
J.W teach that Jesus is a created god and they use for their proof text…Colossians 1:15, 16
“Firstborn” = origin or initiator
Revelation 3:14 “…the Beginning of the creation of God.”
Same word as John 1:1 “In the beginning” - which in fact the 1951 Edition of the Jehovah Witness New World Translation of Greek Scriptures agrees!
Philippians 2:6 “Who being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God.”
“Being” = it’s not the normal Greek word used, but instead Paul uses another word that stresses the essence of Christ’s person – His continuous state or condition.
“Form” = literally, the unchanging character of Christ.
“Robbery” = it’s a word that has evolved over the 1st century. It used to mean something that was seized or snatched by a thief. Then it became to mean - to clutch, embrace or prized.
“Equal” = the exact in quantity, character and number.
Key: When Jesus Christ as God in the flesh, He still had all the exact rights, privileges and honor as deity and so there is still only one God!
Question: Just because Jesus chose not to appropriate all His powers and privileges as man, does that make Him any less God? Absolutely not!
Humble = strength under control
Hebrews 1:3 “Who being the brightness of His glory and the expressed image of God and upholding all things by the word of His power…”
“Being” = His continuous state or condition.
…Same word as in Philippians 2:6
“Brightness” = not a reflection of God’s glory but rather as God, Jesus has the same exact essence.
“Expressed image” = this word is only used here in the N.T. and in extra biblical literature it meant to engrave on wood, an etching on metal, a brand on an animal’s hide, an impression on clay or a stamped image on a coin. Here Paul is stressing the perfect imprint and the exact representation of the true nature of God in both time and space.
Colossians 2:9 “For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily…” What’s the key word here? All!
It’s interesting that in Paul’s day matter was seen as evil and spirit was seen as good. Notice here Paul takes on this false thinking head on! It was unthinkable that God would take on a human body!
Cults use our terminology but they don’t use our dictionary!
The Jehovah’s Witness are the best examples of this principle. Their massive grammatical abuse of the Bible is alarming to a real Greek scholar!
2. Their Denial of The Crucifixion.
They deny that Jesus hung on a cross, but rather on a stake or a pole in the ground. How do does one hang on a pole?
The Watch Tower Society says, “The cross is a symbol falsely used to represent Christianity. Jesus was not crucified on a cross, but on a single stake, a single pole in the ground with no crossbar.”
They say that the cross is legend! That it developed after the 3rd century! You know – it’s so easy to say this and never show any documentation! This is what Cults are great at doing because they know most people are biblically illiterate!
What gets me is that even secular historians and archaeologist disagree with Jehovah Witness!
3. Their Departure From the Resurrection.
They teach that Jesus rose from the dead in spirit only. In a debate with John Ankerburg, this was their comment on Christ’s body, “We know nothing about what became of His physical body, except that it did not decay or corrupt, whether it was dissolved into gases or whether it’s preserved somewhere as a grand memorial of God’s love.”
I’ll tell you what happened to His body, “Up from the grave He arose!”
There’s too much evidence that proves that Jesus did raise body and all!
· Why did Mary and the woman, John and Peter only see the burial cloth in the tomb?
· Jesus ate with the disciples – spirit can’t eat!
· Thomas touched Jesus’ wounds – you can’t touch sprit!
· 1 Corinthian 15 speaks of our resurrection and it involves our bodies and Christ’s bodily resurrection is our assurance. I’ll take Paul’s word over any J.W.
Revelation 1:5 Christ is “Firstborn from the dead.” Simply - Jesus is the first to rise from the dead with a physical body!
J.W. say that since Jesus did not physically rise from the dead, He will not physically return! But wait the Bible says, “Every eye will see Him” return to earth!
4. Their Distortion of The Word “Jehovah”.
J.W. teach that the only name for God is “Jehovah” in the O.T and the N. T. and all other names like Lord (kyrios) and God (theos) are added years later and that we’ve distorted His name.
Where do they get this, you ask? Well let’s look at this issue:
· This is their argument from the Watchtower and Tract Society, “The evidence is, therefore, that the original Scriptures has been tampered with, the same as the text of the Septuagint (Greek translation of the O.T.) has been. And, at least from the 3rd century A.D. onward, the divine name in tetragrammaton form has been eliminated from the text by copyist…In place of it, they substituted the words “Kyrios” and “theos”.”
Tetragrammaton = the Hebrew consonants YHWH, for Jehovah. This is what the J.W’s want us to believe. It’s better translated - Yahweh!
But in reality, Jehovah is a word created by a 13th century Catholic Spanish Monk named Martini. He took the consonants of “Adoni” and “Elohim” to Latinize the word and it was very popular since then.
Now get this, the J.W. agree with this as they said in 1969, “While inclining to view the pronunciation “Yahweh” as the more correct way, we have retained the form “Jehovah” because of the people’s familiarity with it since the 13th century.”
Bruce Metzger said, “Jehovah does not accurately represent any form of the Name ever used in Hebrew.”
So J.W. believe that they need to restore the true name of God and expose the cover up and yet they aren’t!!
Their argument explodes in there face because of the evidence is to the contrary and rather elementary.
· It can be shown from literally thousands of copies of the Greek New Testament and not one does the Tetragrammaton appear, not even in the Book of Matthew, which was possibly written in Hebrew or partly in Aramaic.
5. Their Discounting of Christ’s Atonement.
Mormons have a non-sufficient atonement and the J.Ws. are no better off.
From they’re teaching, “Should You Believe In The Trinity?” “Jesus was no more and no less than a perfect human…thus, when God sent Jesus to earth as the ransom, he made Jesus to be what would satisfy justice, not an incarnation, not a god-man, but perfect man, lower than angels.”
Now watch…this discounting of the atonement messes up their salvation also. If you don’t have an all-sufficient atonement you can’t have an all-powerful salvation! If Christ can’t do it for us then whose left…us! I don’t think so!
The Watchtower Society states, “Salvation depends on works. Grace is more or less the opportunity for human beings to earn their salvation by total obedience to the Watchtower Society. Grace does not involve a free gift of salvation.”
Close to 200 times in the New Testament salvation is said to be by faith alone!
Romans 10:9 “…If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead you shall be saved.”
Romans 10:13 “For whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
What do these verses have in common? Call on the Lord Jesus not Jehovah! The J.W. mistranslate these verses if you didn’t already know!
Revelation 4:11 - The J.W.’s translate this “Jehovah” but correctly translate Romans 10:9 - because if they did then Jesus is Jehovah God!
Blaise Pascal the great 19th century Christian thinker wisely said, “Truth is so obscure in these times and falsehood so established, that unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.”
